


Eyes Wide Open

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Gen Fic, POV Minor Character, Season/Series 04, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-12
Updated: 2009-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hera can see some of the true patterns around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a writing contest at twelvecolonies , this is my take on some of the slightly odd behavior Hera has. Normally I just consider her a normal kid, but sometimes I have to wonder if there's an easier explanation.

Hera didn’t know that she wasn’t supposed to see all those things, just that no one else could understand. They all saw differently, and she didn’t see or know everything. But she knew enough.

She knew that the Sixes were special. The angel had told her, the first time she noticed that Hera could see her. “They were made in my image,” she told Hera, after the question of if she was a cylon. Hera could ask through her mind, too, which impressed the angel.

The next time they passed, Hera told the angel that Kara was special. The angel nodded and raised an eyebrow. “She is like music,” Hera informed her. The angel said nothing for a while, then, “She doesn’t know; you can’t tell her.”

Hera didn’t need to be told that. She could see the way everyone expected her to think simply, and how it sprouted from a belief that she was simple, under all the pressure of her existence. Her mother thought that what she most hated was algae. But Hera hated many things, and algae she could ignore.

Her home was nice. Mommy and Daddy were nice. They didn’t have to understand anything to be that. Hera didn’t want to have people ask her questions about what she knew. She was only three, how could she answer? The angels were beyond age, but Hera knew she couldn’t communicate with anyone else.

Though sometimes when Kara walked by, Hera didn’t know that for sure. She wasn’t going to think about it now, but she kept the option of changing her mind open.

Hera could see things, but she couldn’t always remember them. Crayons were nice for that. The colors spoke to Hera, and the patterns. She wrote down Six after Six, the number too, so she could remember that they were connected. Everything else that she saw was connected to this.

Her mother came in to see her, and Hera didn’t notice what she said or did. Hera acted like it was nothing, because to her mother it would have to be. But when she looked back at the physical representation of her memory, she hadn’t seen enough.

She needed to see another Six, not just Caprica. Caprica was different, Hera knew. She didn’t know how yet, but she could see it.

Walking out of the room, Hera listened as well as looked. She could hear things too, sometimes. Sounds that seemed unorganized when Tigh walked by, or Chief or Anders. Kara sounded like the music on some of Daddy’s old tapes. This time, though, she listened and heard something else.

It was enough. She walked towards it, and would try hard to remember everything, because she hadn’t brought any crayons with her.

The Six was called Natalie, and she didn’t just feel different, she looked it. Hera walked up to her, wondering what it was. Natalie smiled at her, bending down to her level. Mommy had told her all about electricity, and how she wasn’t to stick her hand in the socket. Hera thought she heard electricity now.

She heard her mother’s voice break in, but she didn’t understand it. Her mother couldn’t take her away yet, not until she understood this. They never let her have enough time to understand.

But then Chief was the one who took her, and Hera heard his noise stronger than the electricity. She wouldn’t let him distract her forever. She closed her eyes and remembered Natalie.

Chief brought her back home, but Mommy didn’t come back. Hera didn’t pay attention to that as she let the crayons color the paper again, not until the electricity faded away. She didn’t understand, but she knew that Natalie had been electricity to Hera, and now she was gone.

Hera colored one of the heads with brown, spun out of control by electricity. And she saw that putting a six by the name didn’t work. It wasn’t like that, numbers and designations. Maybe someday everyone would see. If the differences weren’t all faded away first.


End file.
